Fred, revisited

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better. If I already know you well, expect the questions may be a little more intimate! (but not that intimate ;-D)
3. You will update your lj with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

alitalf asked, and the ravens cawed ( and cawed and cawed )

International Women's Day

[while it still is... just]

Having disliked the idea of lj gifts from the moment they were implemented. [This is my space and I get to choose how I let folk into it. Pretty pictures ain't it. (I am a very difficult person to give gifts to: a failing on my part.)] I wasn't overly interested in Rosie the Riveter, slightly annoyed by the faint aura of cashing in on a worthy cause but really not that bothered.

Soaking in the bath, ruminating on my inability to think of anything profound to say on the subject of International Women's Day, I had a small moment of clarity. Rosie hammered against my skull.

Sure she's an icon, one very much of the USA (which is understandable since lj is US-based, but someone less parochial might be more in the spirit...), but... a tacit supporter of a war, taking up the tools left by men shipped off to the theatre of war, to be sent back to the kitchen sink when she's no longer required when the boys come marching back. Not quite the icon I'd choose: a negative kind of empowerment, that, leaping in when there are no men to do the job rather than motoring along in partnership.

That's not really my problem tho'. It's her age. She's a fifty-odd year old icon. Can't we find anyone newer? I'm not sure I can think of anyone. But Rosie it ain't.